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Gaining Trust and Confidence

August focus: Domestic Cleaning Service

Gaining Trust and Confidence (of the Client)

Making an Impression when you Arrive

It is always advisable to meet the client at an allocated time that is not the time set for doing the work, and when you do meet your client for the first time, a better impression will be made if you arrive wearing the clothes of a businessperson. This means, a business jacket and matching pants (or skirt). This will immediately impress upon your client that you take this business seriously, and that you will provide a professional level of service. Without even having to open your mouth, much will be said about you that words won’t then have to express or explain.

This business will require certain skills that you may not have at this stage, or that you may not have considered necessary up until now in the professions you have previously been involved in. Because this work is performed in other people’s homes you must either have or develop the skills of diplomacy, consideration, trustworthiness, and relaxed and fluent communication. There are some vital strategies that you can use to help put your clients at ease. They are:

1) Greet your client with a warm hello when they first open the door to you as you arrive. Smile and look into your client’s eyes, and remember, don’t be shy – it will make your client feel uncomfortable.

2) Spend a few minutes talking with them about general topics, not necessarily about their cleaning. Get to know your client a little and begin to develop your relationship with them. This will help to put them at ease with having you in their home. If you walk in and commence discussing their cleaning require- ments without offering some warmth and friendliness they are not going to feel very comfortable with you. A good way to do this is when the client shows you what needs to be done look for something like a photo on the wall that you can ask them to tell you all about. Your client will love to tell you of the holiday they had where for example, they climbed the Himalayan Mountains as a family. Or, the trophy on the dresser for the tournament that they won which meant a lot to them because of the hard work they put in to winning the event. Or, talk of the photographs of the 17-year-old daughter who is just so beautiful (not a recommended course of action for guys). Parents simply love to be proud of their kids. If you look for and ask about things to discuss that do not mean that you are delving too far into your client’s privacy, then they are going to take a liking to you almost straight away.

3) Always be considerate of the fact that if you speak another language and you work as a couple, it is best not to talk in your own language while in the presence of the client. It may make the client feel that you are talking about them behind their back. Speak in English if your client is in the same room as you.

4) If you are a smoker never, ever smoke in your client’s home. It doesn’t matter whether they smoke or not because it is your job to impress them each time you do the cleaning with the wonderful work you have done. This includes impressing their olfactory (sense of smell) senses as well. Your cleaning will have a greater impact if they can smell the products that you have used while you have been working, not the cigarettes that you have been smoking in their home. The house should have a lovely perfumed smell at the end of your work, which should impress the client as soon as they open the door. You would not believe how many people have been sacked due to the client not thinking that the cleaning had been done because they couldn’t smell that any cleaning products had been used in the house.

5) Make friends with the children and the pet animals (if they are not hostile towards you, of course). If kids and pets accept you so too will the client while ever your work is being performed well.

6) Remember to say please and thank you. Practice this with clients, suppliers, advertisers and anyone you come into contact with. Always remember to say ‘Thank you for seeing me today,’ or ‘Thank you for using my/our service and for providing work,’ and Thank you for your time,’ and so on. Be sincere.

If you follow these few simple rules you will have much greater success in having a comfortable atmosphere while in your clients’ homes.

You can read more in the next article about: Becoming a Good Conversationalist

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Free From the Gilded Cage is the education arm of the Loving Heart Foundation Australia where we teach the basics of self-employment and basic budgeting skills. This is so that women can learn the skills needed to manage their own lives without feeling trapped in a relationship with a man who is beating them up. With these skills they can easily leave him.

Update: The first novel in our series of seven written to raise funds for those whom we assist is now published. It is the courageous story of a young teen growing up in a home filled with domestic violence, and how she manoeuvres her way through such a difficult situation. Click here if you’d like to know more about this novel.

Click here if you’d like to be taken to the site where you can purchase this novel.